Vendor risk assessments continue to confound many companies, even while they say that getting a handle on supply-chain risk is at the top of their priority list.

According to a survey by research firm Briefcase Analytics, 93 percent of the 173 corporate executives surveyed ranked vendor risk assessment as important or very important, but 56 percent said they were not happy with their current approach to vendor risk assessment.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...